Do pro-Palestinian protesters aim to help Palestinians? |
The latest Global Sumud Flotilla debacle, following a weekend of Nakba Day protests, raises important questions about the aims of the pro-Palestine international.
While Gaza flotilla events usually follow a mundane routine of interception, brief detention, and swift deportation, the cohort of sailing enthusiasts intercepted earlier this week were subjected to unusually cruel treatment normally reserved for Palestinian security detainees in Israeli prisons: they had their hands tied behind their backs and were forced to crouch on the ground. Meanwhile, Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir taunted them, waving an Israeli flag. This humiliating episode was recorded and circulated on social media by Ben-Gvir himself, as well as Transportation Minister Miri Regev, and was so clearly malicious and deeply stupid that both Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued statements condemning it, with the former saying that Ben-Gvir “knowingly caused harm to Israel with this disgraceful display” and the latter saying that “the way that Minister Ben Gvir dealt with the flotilla activists is not in line with Israel’s values and norms.”
Israeli journalists and left-wing politicians were quick to point out the hypocrisy of these statements. Ben-Gvir – a convicted criminal who has overseen soaring murder rates and promoted a racist death penalty law – had been appointed by Netanyahu, and Sa’ar himself had helped cement the coalition and represented it as Foreign........